


jar of hearts

by averzierlia



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-21
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/averzierlia/pseuds/averzierlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik collected a jar of hearts; Magneto forgot about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	jar of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Um, this is based on the song [Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVgt86o4zIw), and is similar but not the same to the fic idea I posted on my journal. I'm never writing that fic. If I can help it, it will never get written. This is something essentially different, yet inevitably the same.
> 
> Also, un-beta'd.

Charles knew, rationally, that Erik wasn’t aware of what he was doing. That Erik wasn’t consciously making people fall in love with him.

It didn’t make it any easier.

First, or more accurately, third, was Raven. She saw someone who didn’t encourage her to hide her skin and latched on, no regard for his state of mind, his morals, or his vendetta. Never mind that Charles had only ever wanted to keep her safe.

First was Emma Frost. He’d felt it in her mind, the first night, the night he saved Erik. The fascination of Erik’s bright mind, his hatred for the man he only ever thought of as Herr Doktor, his ability.

Even Alex showed the beginning signs of the longing.

And there was himself, the perfect example of knowing something was bad for him and greedily taking what he could get of it anyway.

He’d known it would end in blood and tears and screaming. He hadn’t known it would end in loss and pain.

*

After the beach; after the hospitals and the therapy and the pity and the sympathy, Charles came home to Erik in his study.

He froze in the doorway, unable to fathom what Erik was doing here. He didn’t bother to ask, because he didn’t trust himself to tell a lie from the truth.

“Charles,” Erik said, eyes on the wheelchair, face shadowed and blank under his helmet.

“Get out,” Charles said flatly, rolling himself over to his desk, where his normal chair has been thoughtfully moved. It made him so angry that he couldn’t breathe through the rage.

“Charles,” Erik said again, his voice coaxing, and Charles turned to face him, and Erik stopped speaking at the look on Charles’ face.

“I can’t deal with you right now, Erik. Get. Out,” Charles enunciated the last two words carefully, because if Erik didn’t leave soon Charles was going to do something drastic and stupid and regretful.

Erik left with a sweep of his cloak and a trail of nothingness where his mind used to be. Charles couldn’t bring himself to regret his actions, not with the way rage seethed hard and hot in his belly.

*

Erik showed up in his study again exactly eleven months from the day on the Cuban beach. It’s been six months, give or take a few days, since the last time Charles saw him.

“What do you want, Magneto?” Charles asked tiredly, because he couldn’t think of the man before him as ‘Erik’ anymore. He loved Erik. He liked to think (pretend, a traitorous voice in the back of his head said) that Erik loved him back. Magneto was born when Shaw died, and Magneto is the one who ripped away half of his body, half of his mind. Because he couldn’t think of Magneto as Erik, because Erik was, had been, redeemable. Magneto had made his choices, and now he and Charles were on opposite sides of a war that the world didn’t know was raging.

Charles didn’t miss the flinch Magneto made when Charles said his name.

“I –” Magneto said, stumbling over his words, apparently shocked and baffled into incoherence by Charles’ use of his chosen name.

“I don’t have all night,” Charles stated indifferently, “and Alex will be up soon with my tea. So unless you want to fight your way out of the mansion, I suggest you say what you came to say quickly and leave.”

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” Magneto said softly.

Charles snorted. “You don’t get the luxury of concern for your enemy while at war.”

Magneto flinched again. “My friend, I am worried about you,” he tried, “you haven’t been acting yourself,” and it earned him another snort.

“You mean I haven’t been preaching peace and pacifism to my students,” Charles supplied, cutting to the heart of the matter. “We’re at war and I don’t have the luxury of holding onto my ideals if I’m going to keep humans safe.”

“This isn’t like you,” Magneto said, still clinging to the idea that he can be Erik.

Charles looked up from his paperwork and looked at Magneto for the first time since the man showed up in his study.

“You mean this isn’t the man you left on the beach. You’re right, it isn’t,” Charles paused and waited until Magneto met his eyes before continuing. “I’m not the same man, you’re not the same man, because the actions we took on the beach had consequences, and now we all have to deal with them. I chose to hold Shaw still for you, you chose to tar all humans with the same bush, a human chose to try to use a gun against someone who can bend metal, Raven chose to take a different path. All those actions shaped us into something we wouldn’t otherwise be.”

Magneto made a wounded noise, which Charles ignored.

“There isn’t a place for you here anymore,” Charles said quietly, dropping his eyes back to his desk.

For a long time after Magneto left, Charles just sat and breathed. Because while what he had just done was the necessary thing, it was still the hardest and most painful thing he’d ever done.

*

The next time they met, it was on the battlefield, and Magneto had given up on trying to be Erik. It didn’t make things any easier.

Because Emma still loved Erik.

Because Raven still loved Erik.

Because Alex still wondered.

Because Charles still felt like he was less than he was, not because he’d lost his legs, but because he’d lost Erik.

And Magneto wasn’t Erik anymore.


End file.
